Isles ideal to bridge culture gap

By Jerry Burris
Advertiser Editorial Page Editor

One of the enduring ironies of the collision between the Japanese training ship Ehime Maru and the American submarine USS Greeneville is that it happened in Hawai‘i.

That’s because the incident has brought into exquisite focus the different world views of Japanese and Americans. If any place ought to be able to bridge this gap, it should be Hawai‘i.

This gap in world views shows up in many ways, some of them superficial and some of them fundamental. For instance, the Japanese press tend to report that the Greeneville rammed, or hit, the Japanese surface vessel.

American reports more often described the incident as a "collision" between two craft. A subtle, but important, difference.

Or, how is the location of the incident reported? American reports tend to put it "off Diamond Head." Some Japanese reports have put the incident "near Pearl Harbor."

Again, subtle but meaningful differences.

The larger issues go to the way Americans and Japanese approach crises of this sort. Much has been made of the slowness or inappropriateness of American apologies for the incident. That criticism appears overblown, by any measure. But it had some basis in reality — particularly in the first few days following the collision, where it felt as if the primary focus here was on damage control.

But since then, there has been a series of events that must astound those who are accustomed to American military culture: a top-ranking Navy admiral, bowing deeply from the waist, in a meeting with families of the Ehime Maru victims.

Or a tearful Cmdr. Scott Waddle, who had his own face-to-face meeting with families even as his career and reputation were being tried in a historic military court of inquiry.

Bows and tears are not what one normally expects from our buttoned-down, stone-faced military culture.

Now, those apologies may go a long way toward the emotional healing of the families of the Ehime Maru victims. That is a human thing that crosses cultures. But the drumbeat of unhappiness with the American response may have less to do with Japanese culture than it does with internal Japanese politics.

There are those in Japan, both on the left and the right, for whom anti-American, "Yankee Go Home" tactics simply make for good politics. This collision, coupled with a series of unfortunate incidents on Okinawa, simply provide fodder for their ongoing efforts to topple the current political structure.

Which brings us back to mutual understanding of different world views. Hawai‘i is home to the East-West Center, whose central mission is nothing less than this: Mutual understanding among and between cultures of East and West.

It is a mission that has been mocked at times by those who would like to see a more pragmatic, measurable, results-oriented operation.

And there may be room for some of that, somewhere. But as we struggle to understand the aftermath of this terrible event in Hawaiian waters, the importance of something as simple as cross-cultural understanding becomes ever more obvious.

Jerry Burris can be reached through letters@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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